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As a claustrophobic, I was expecting it to be about as inviting as Hitler’s Berlin bunker. But a combination of clever interior design, expert building and state-of-the-art technology means that it is blissful and cocoon-like.

No wonder these new layers of London housing have become so fashionable. But acquiring this underworld paradise, and one of the largest indoor swimming pools in Belgravia, is never going to come cheap: this five-bedroom house in Graham Terrace is for sale with estate agents Ayrton Wylie at just under £16 million.

This is a classic bankers’ bunker: an underground retreat with its own spa and pool. In a city where the smartest neighbourhoods have limitless cash, but are governed by strict planning laws, building up or sideways is rarely allowed.

Going underground: Heiresses Petra, left, and Tamara Ecclestone both want to extend the basement of their homes

So digging down is the ever-more popular answer.

These new extensions are known as ‘icebergs’ because while you may only see the house above ground level, there is much more: multiple secret storeys hidden below.

They have received well over 800 applications for fancy basements in the past four years. The vast majority have been accepted.

The pretty Victorian streets and squares are marked less by trees now than by angled conveyor belts transferring dug-out rubble and soil into skips to be carted away in trucks.

It’s a complicated business — building works must be assiduously sealed to avoid flooding. Despite these technical considerations, some London streets in smart parts of town seem to have about three underground pools being built at any one time.

Residents’ time is taken up either investigating their own subterranean potential or complaining about other people’s efforts. Not everyone sees the need for private spas in the middle of town.

Take the recently released plans of Canadian cable TV tycoon David Graham, a ‘socialite Palm Beach type’ (according to his acquaintances), who was once married to Lord (Conrad) Black’s wife Barbara Amiel.

He wants to build an ‘iceberg’ basement four storeys deep beneath a 19th-century schoolhouse in Knightsbridge.

His underground extension will house a pool, a ballroom, a car lift and parking spaces, and will expand his house into a giant with most of it lurking beneath the surface.

Neighbours, including novelist Edna O’Brien and the Duchess of St Albans, are furious.

‘Monstrous and unnecessary . . . it’s absolute greed. No one needs that much space,’ said the Duchess.

‘The commotion is going to be dreadful.’

A spokesman for Milner Street Area Residents Association added: ‘Why should we all suffer just so one man can indulge his fantasy?’

Digging out and shifting tons of earth around can, indeed, be pretty disruptive. The anger of neighbours is usually inflamed by the fact that the homeowner is often living elsewhere while the works are carried out, and so is immune to the stress and noise.

Angry: Edna O'Brien, novelist and short story writer, is said to be opposed to David Graham's plans to extend his home

Goldman Sachs director Christoph Stanger had to apologise to his furious neighbours in Kensington this summer after his £1 million basement excavation — built to fit a playroom, guest room, gym, wine cellar and cinema into his £7 million house — turned into a Leonard Rossiter farce.

Slight shifts in the foundations saw neighbours left stuck in their flats by doors that wouldn’t open, while cracks appeared like a hatching egg.

Louise Stael von Holstein, who lives in the flat next door, said: ‘They’ve been digging since the beginning of the year, down into the basement, and it’s caused the house to subside. The basement flat in my block has got cracks everywhere.’

Even Stanger’s own house wobbled, and required emergency surgery. Neighbour Jonathan Wearing said wearily: ‘Once planning permission is granted there are only the fine words and empty promises of architects, surveyors and party-wall agreements to protect neighbours.’

In 2009, Jon Hunt, the wily founder of Foxtons Estate Agents who sold his company for £370 million just before the financial crash, put in an application for a whopping five-level basement that included a swimming pool, a full-sized underground tennis court and a car museum for his Ferraris, vintage cars and motorbikes ‘to be displayed like objects of art’.

Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, meanwhile, has a jewelled swimming pool and warren of steam rooms made from the same marble as the Taj Mahal in the basement of his house (known, of course, as the Taj Mittal) in Kensington.

Swish: Indian Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of the world's largest steel company, ArcelorMittal, has a jewelled swimming pool and a warren of steam rooms in the basement of his home

Her basement extension included a bowling alley, swimming pool, disco and a ‘3D movie theatre with eight custom-designed seats each with its own refrigerator and popcorn maker’, according to her Los Angeles-based designer.

She did however, in an uncharacteristic display of self-restraint, scrap the plans for a ‘dog spa’.

Tamara’s younger sister Petra, not to be outdone, is doing her own basement in Chelsea. Her underground extension will have all the usual ‘toys’ and, apparently, a waterfall. Naturally.

Isla Baring, a philanthropist who lives nearby, led furious residents who wrote to her father Bernie asking for compensation for the disruption.

‘We suggested that he give us some money rather than throwing it all away on his spoiled daughter so she can live in this enormous monster of a house,’ she said tartly.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Kensington, Howard Donald of boy band Take That is engaged in the ongoing excavation of his £4.4 million Kensington house to build ‘nanny quarters’ and a playroom.

One neighbour said: ‘We predicted this would cause a lot of trouble and we were right. We’ve been condemned to months of noise and inconvenience. Normal family life is being ruined by this fashion for excavations.’

Extending: Take That's Howard Donald is excavating his Kensington home to build a 'nanny quarters' and a playroom

Such ‘iceberg’ extensions have become so desirable that even houses where no extra space is needed are having their foundations excavated.

Take Witanhurst House in Highgate, North London. This enormous pile is to be doubled in size — even though there is already 45,000 sq ft of it.

Plans of the proposed extension show two home cinemas, a spa with a hair salon and massage room, a 70ft swimming pool, and a car park for 25 cars.

The entire enterprise is thought to be costing more than £50 million. When completed, it will be the largest home in London not owned by the Royal Family.

Prime London property prices have risen 43 per cent in the past three years, leading many homeowners to look at ways of improving their existing properties before considering a move. But while increasing your square footage may increase the value of your property, you need very deep pockets for a deep dig.

And what do you need all that underground space for?

Roarie Scarisbrick, of Property Vision, which acts for top-end buyers, sounds a note of caution. ‘A bedroom legally has to have a window — not unreasonably — so you quickly run out of things to do with sub-basements.

‘Icebergs just don’t feel right. I’ve seen — with a heavy heart — golf simulation rooms, a pilates studio, a cinema, and a massive pool with a retractable roof that turned into a dancefloor. But the further you go down, the further you are from proper ventilation and daylight.’

The rich used to build towers and follies as trophies of their wealth, although there has always been the odd rich eccentric who fancied life underground.

In the mid-19th century, the fifth Duke of Portland, a strange, shy agrophobic, built a web of tunnels 15 miles long, and a huge pink ballroom underneath his estate at Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire. Not surprisingly for such a withdrawn character, he never held a ball there.

At Witley Park in Godalming, a mining magnate called Whitaker Wright built a billiards room with a glass ceiling under the lake. This display of wealth didn’t do him any good in the long run.

His empire collapsed and he committed suicide. In 1903, the estate was bought by Lord Pirrie, the shipbuilder who went on to build the Titanic.